Little Cliff House

– Craighall Park, Johannesburg –

A small house set in counterpoint to a rocky mini-cliff edge in suburban Joburg is made up of two off shutter concrete boxes linked by a glass bridge. In the summer, one lives on a large open balcony. Steel columns sway along the facades, at irregular intervals and tilts — they form a kind of rippling curtain between the world and the interior – the site is really just a shimmer of dappled shade, the building responds to the rippling movement of leaves and light, the columns echo the twinned and off-key stems of the many gum saplings.